voidtreckerexpress | ( open ) i am so high, i can hear heaven

Entry tags:

( open ) i am so high, i can hear heaven

Who: Lan Jingyi (

jingyeets) & ( OPEN )
Where: Quiet Carriage; Garden Carriage; elsewhere in train carriages.
When: Merriment 16 to Merriment 21!
What: Arm wrestling; drunken/tipsy wanderings; memorial construction w/calligraphy/painting; etc.
Warnings: Alcohol consumption! Relationship discussions, including potential mentions of gay panic, depending. Will warn as applicable.

ready to rumble (closed to dennis)

Time on the train is a construct even more apparent than the time otherwise passing on worlds, when they're on worlds. He's only seen three platforms and two worlds, but there likely is another coming, and that's something nice to look forward to, assuming he gets to fly. He'd love to fly, he aches for it, having been minimal in application in the illusion world, and always caught and constrained on platform.

Anyway, that was for another day, and for tonight, he has other plans, involving Dennis, the unmarked bottle of alcohol he's ordered, and the two sauce sized ramekins. When he does manage to track Dennis down, he quirks up his brow, holds up both bottle and ramekins (go with him here, the teacups won't work right and no one has proper drinking bowls or cups in his opinion, and there's only so much alcohol in the bottle anyway). "Ready?"

For the talk they need to have, for the arm wrestling already promised, and for tiny, tiny shots of the best alcohol Jingyi could possibly have ordered from back home. A wine, technically... but don't be fooled. It's hard liquor.

arm wrestling and other shenanigans (ota, merriment 16)

Tipsy, Jingyi eases open the quiet car door, and makes a surprisingly upright drift throughout the train, made more chaotic by use of the transgates. For the most part, in human form, he can be found:

in the standard carriage, challenging anyone who feels like it to arm wrestling at the chairs facing each other over a fold down table where he will lose for any younger Voidtrecker who takes him up on it, and most the rest depending;

to the spa carriage where, after prodding at the ICP, he finds the tutorial video for massages and tries to nab a buddy for him to learn on (yes, while clearly inebriated, but don't worry, it'll be fine), after which he'll think going into the pool is the best idea. Which is the last time he'll be in clothing, after making sure no one around is... around, or asking them if they care; sometime in soaking in the hot water he decides he wants to swim, and ends up dragon, the fox-sized form he takes on capable of swimming sinuously through.

At some point he drags himself out and beelines in the air, bouncing himself off walls, ceilings, just about anything, aiming for an eventual stop in the Garden carriage, hoping to swim in the lotus pool there. He's hot.

memorial construction (merriment 16-merriment 21)

Starting from Merriment 16 onward, Jingyi can be found working on using spiritual energy to carve words into a stone in the garden; or sitting and using a bench to work on calligraphy of an odd alphabet that looks pointedly like something untranslated, shown on his SCA. He's using a calligraphy brush and black ink on paper to make sure he has the form right.

Only after he's finished perfecting that does he return to the stone, taking time in the days after to channel spiritual energy through his calligraphy brush to "carve" those letters into its face. He's taking quite a lot of time, because this is not the ideal way to do this (as far as he knows), and the concentration it takes is enough he gets through a few letters then stands up to walk around and be physically active, before returning to his work.

The day he finishes, he brings the censer he ordered and sets the first incense alight. To those who recognise the scent, it's clearly sandalwood based. Pressing his hands together before him, he says, "May you find what it is you're looking for."

On the stone, now automatically translated for all to read, it says:

'What is past I cannot reach again, and what is to come I cannot keep.
The candle has a heart—it too hates parting. In our place, it sheds a tear at dawn.
Dedicated to the Missing and the Lost.
You are remembered.'

wildcard

Hit me up OOC for a starter, or tag in anywhere on train with your own! Roommates, feel free to hit him up for shenanigans.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There is nothing dignified in crying and it is about the same time that Lan Jingyi realises the problem that Taiki does also. Tears and snot mixed with oil and bare skin. It deepens his embarrassment.

Still before he can even think about what he can do about it he is being carried. He doesn't protest, though he blinks confusedly through his tears, wondering where Jingyi is taking him.

Then they are in the water, warmth sinking into his skin. The shock is enough to stop his remaining tears and he is left blinking at Jingyi, confused, but not upset.

Taiki's lack of anything more than the blinking response is a concern to Jingyi's inebriated state of mind, and while he's now pretty sure he helped break Xiao Ki, he's also set on making it up to him. Which means cupping water to pour over his shoulders, and then realising there still isn't a towel nearby, so scrubbing him clean is going to be a hassle.

"You're so light, I'm amazed you don't just float," he says, repeating the cupping of water to help wet Taiki down.

Until brilliance strikes, and Jingyi, who had been in want of a towel, brings his tail around fast enough that Taiki likely feels the water displacement. Then the sopping, blue furred mess of it, looking rather depressingly like a fluffy dog's flowing tail turned into the clear outline of muscle and bone and fur falling in wet waves sticking right too it.

He grabs a fistful of his own wet tail fur and sets to just. Cleaning. Taiki. With it.

"See, the water's helping, right? Feels nice and warm," to these two guys sitting in the water in their cargo trousers, as you do, "Easy to clean up in too."

At least his lightness hadn't led to any stumbling, Lan Jingyi must be pretty nimble to adjust quickly when he is as drunk as he was. But before Taiki can even apologise for the inconvenience he has a tail... cleaning him.

He looks even more confused, but nods, trying to make Jingyi see that he's alright. Feeling very embarrassed about his tears.

"I'm sorry I cried on you..."

But the water is warm, and soothing, even if being washed by a tail is a completely bizarre experience.

Lan Jingyi would also be able to do some credible honour to his name as a fighter right now, just don't expect brilliance in much of anything else. Exhibit D: using his sopping wet tail fur like a towel to clean up Taiki from all the tears and snot.

"Don't be," he says, like he's revoking permission to be sorry about crying on him, or like what he more means, which is there's no need to apologise for it. "I'm sorry for whatever I said."

No, he's not sure what it was, and his ability to track conversation right now is shot, but he has that impression of it being his fault in the first place, so he's going with that.

"Let me make it up to you?" He flaps the hand not currently using his tail like a washcloth at Taiki. "Do you like music?"

He bowed his head, shaking it slightly. It was not Lan Jingyi's fault. He had been kind, it had just been too much.

This would be too much as well if it wasn't so bizarre, being held in warm water and gently washed. A kindness that would have been overwhelming if not for the fact the boy doing the washing was very drunk and using his tail.

"Music?" He nodded slowly. "Um... Yes... I do..."

He sits awkwardly, feeling weird about being washed but feeling weirder about the idea of touching Jingyi's tail to take any control of this situation.

"Here, hold this."

Jingyi doesn't help so much as sort of try to nab Taiki's hand to then shove his own tail into his hand; if he's already made this leap into living wet towel, he's sticking with it, because he needs both hands to handle his qin.

Which is when he reaches his next conclusion: he can summon it, but his pouch is back by the table, and so his qin comes into silver light existence over there, and he has to waggle his fingers to send it gently floating their way, like a fish on a line. He's twisted around just enough to be able to set his qin on the side of the pool, carefully leaving Taiki holding his tail (well, as long as Taiki doesn't let go, since none of this reads as all that wonderfully normal) and shifts to be sitting in a kneel in his thoroughly wet trousers, drying his fingers by running them through his hair.

When he plays, to plum blossoms, the beauty and resilience of that which blooms in winter.

Not wanting to insult Jingyi or make him feel worse or do anything to annoy or inconvenience him in any way meant that Taiki was left just holding his tail, bemused and quiet.

The confusion only hightens when the qin came drifting over to the pool, sat holding the tail and watching as Lan Jingyi began playing.

The music is beautiful, even if this is perhaps the weirdest situation he's been in in a while- discounting the fact they were on a train that kidnapped people and hurtled through the void between worlds.

He is silent, just staring at Jingyi as he played, both of them sat in the pool, Taiki holding onto Jingyi's tail.

Lament, to think this is what people are being introduced to as Dragon: Jingyi, of the Lans, sitting half clothed in a heated pool, playing qin with a poor victim holding to his tail out of politeness.

Behold the majesty. Witness the grace.

He's so concentrated on his playing that his brow furrows a touch, his lips pressed into a line that only softens as his fingers respond to muscle memory and training, and then he continues to play, seemingly growing less aware of their situation as a whole as he goes.

It... it may be up to Taiki, as the sober one, to actually interrupt or guide what's happening. ... If he can find it in him.

Unfortunately for everyone involved in this very awkward moment, Taiki would rather die than interrupt someone who was playing an instrument, someone who had been nothing but kind to him.

So he just sits and would listen, for as long as Jingyi wished to play.

Don't worry.

The inactivity-out-of-politeness-intervention police has arrived.

Or rather, Inigo has arrived. He doesn't go into the spa all that often for obvious reasons, but today he may be sneaking in a peek, just to say if there are no obstacles to trigger his obvious reasons for usually fleeing far away from the car..

But no. It's already too late. Because Inigo has absolutely no idea what's going on, with Jingyi sitting there and playing and Taiki looking like he cried, but it doesn't matter. Because there are two half-clothed versions of his friends sitting there.

The sound of the qin is entirely interrupted by the most primal screech that has ever left Inigo's throat.

You're welcome, you two.

Thank you, Inigo, for interrupting what was otherwise one brand of stupidity with another one that's at least probably less about biting your tongue out of extreme politeness to the point of self-sacrifice, or being drunk, which is primarily the spa issue.

However, because a screech of that nature has a very specific indication to Jingyi, and that indication is danger, he unceremoniously slips his tail out of Taiki's grasp, leaps from the water like an avenging angel in very, very wet pants, and is holding his qin like he's ready to fight, while very glassy eyed, narrow focussed, and with his body language going from loose and relaxed to fighting posture.

"What's happening?!"

Trust this guy holding a musical instrument as a weapon, he's got this. Only he sees nothing to fight, so he's also looking steadily more and more confused?

"... Xiao Ki?"

Help, what's going on?

He jumps as well when he hears that screech, skittering back slightly, like the deer creature he is. But it only takes him a moment to realise he knows that screech. Or at least a less distressing version of it.

He would know the sound of that voice anyways and seeing Jingyi getting ready to fight makes his heart leap up into his throat.

"No! Wait!" He reaches out, towards Jingyi's arm, wide eyed and almost trembling with the fear that Jingyi might attack with the Qin.

"Inigo?"

At least the very immediate potential target of qin violence has moved out of the way. Because right after letting out that screech, Inigo has moved back as much as he can - which means that he's now just peeking around the corner of the doorway, looking a little bit like a kid that's trying hard to not get caught by its parents.

.. you know, after already having let out the loudest sound possible to give away where he was.

"I-It's fine! It's fine! I didn't see anything!"

(It's too late, he already saw everything.

He's nervously sweating. There's a hand in front of his own eyes to cover up this sinful sight.)

Jingyi stops, though he wouldn't have done anything without visible sign of something to attack, and all he's got is... Taiki, telling him to stop, and... Inigo? He squints, and that is Inigo, peeking around the doorway, covering his eyes, having shrieked?

Jingyi blinks, then frowns, then looks distressedly between Inigo, who is acting weird by the door and refuses to even look at them, and Taiki, who is acting like he, well, reasonably expects Jingyi was going to fight Inigo, even if Jingyi totally was only going to fight Inigo of Inigo was actually a banshee coming in for the kill. Which he isn't. He's just not looking at them.

Which, through contorted leaps of assumption, has Jingyi instead hugging his qin like a beloved pillow, only made of wood and strings and probably in need of a good tuning and wipedown after all this, wet tail falling to the floor with a sad thud.

"Xiao Ki, Inigo won't even look at me, how bad was my music?!" Is he close to wailing himself? No, thankfully, but he says this looking absolutely crestfallen over at Taiki, as if Taiki has somehow kept the truth of his own apparently terrible playing from him, because that must be why this is happening.

He relaxes slightly once he realises Jingyi wasn't going to attack Inigo, that was one worry down. But Inigo... Is retreating and babbling and...

It takes a moment for Taiki to realise what state of dress, or lack of it he is in. And Jingyi too... But before his brain can conclude what conclusions Inigo might have come to... Jingui is sat, looking so sad. He reaches out to clasp his shoulder, just for a moment.

"Oh. No. Your music was beautiful. I don't... I think..."

He's so confused. "Inigo?" He stood up, his trousers are soaking wet and he drips water as he scrambles out of the tub. "Inigo it's alright..."

"No, no, no, no!"

Yes, those 'no's are getting louder and louder each time they're repeated, and it's coupled with shakes of his head - even while he's still forcibly blinding himself.

"There is nothing wrong with your music! It's fine-- you're both fine! I promise I won't tell anyone else about you guys' love affair!" Look, why else would two dudes sitting together in a spa half-naked while being dangerously close to cuddling and serenading, all at the same time?

After all, everyone knows that two dudes who are chilling in a hot tub must be five feet apart because they're not gay.

Jingyi, still hugging his qin, doesn't process quite as fast as either Taiki or Inigo speak. "No?"

No, his music was terrible? No, it wasn't? He figures out they both aren't insulting his music and he feels less like he's let down his entire clan by somehow being atonal when drunk, meaning he's at least hunching his shoulders less.

"You both like my music!" He beams, going from distressed to incandescently, disproportionately happy like that.

Only then he finally parses what Inigo's saying, and both eyebrows lift.

What the legitimate, actual—

"You... you think I'd secretly hold a love affair? Oh, Inigo. I'd sing it from the top of the train, loudly. Very loudly! Very... love... loud? With love. Lots of love. Annoyingly."

He shakes his head, slow because of his lack of sobriety, and he looks almost sorry for this concept Inigo has that Jingyi is somehow, magically, subtle. Or dating. Cripes, Inigo, you just turned him down like, less than a week ago! (He has no concept of time while drunk, just. Just saying.) Even if that was all in Inigo's perception too... He blinks, looking to Taiki with bleary eyes, and a sopping wet tail starting to flop around more energetically.

"Xiao Ki." He points, shifting his qin to one arm. Jingyi may indeed be starting to pout. "Haven't you told him about kirin and romance?"

It doesn't occur to Jingyi that perhaps no one else is point blank asking people about their romance culture, when clearly, more people should. It's a confusing mess out here on train.

Edited 2021-09-13 06:00 (UTC)

Inigo. Oh Inigo... Taiki looks down, quite embarrassed at Inigo's sudden claim even as Jingyi begins to loudly protest the concept of him keeping love secret. Taiki can see how Inigo might have come to the conclusion. Inigo had a very... Inigo concept of such things.

He stepped forward and then shook his head, a breeze of wind later and there is a kirin beast in the spa. It's a little cramped but at least now Inigo only had one half naked teenager to deal with.

"We've spoken of it before." He tells Jingyi softly, though never in such a direct way. Because no one has ever spoken to him so direct as Jingyi about such things, about anything.

"Inigo, it's alright. Lan Jingyi was just helping me because I was foolish and let my emotions get the better of me."

A sort of accurate explanation of what all of this was.

Don't worry, Inigo very well has an idea of why (casual) romance isn't really in the cards for either of these two present half-naked boys. For a variety of reasons. But that's exactly why he was saying it was a secret love affair, okay, that clearly makes it all make more sense.

But while that misunderstanding is being solved, and half of the nudity problem here too, it still isn't fully solved. The latter part, anyway. It's why Inigo is still looking through his fingers (yes, his hands are still on his face, just with the fingers now spread out) as he stares at the other two.

Or mostly Taiki. Get your unholy naked chest away from him, Jingyi.

".. What do you mean? You're never foolish."

Will someone tell the drunk guy what the problem is here, because he can't figure it out on his own, what with Inigo looking more and more like the kid caught peering through his fingers because he can't not look, even when he's scared of what he might see. Which to Jingyi, means he should look around for ghosts, as that's what he ever did that for growing up. Are there ghosts other than the half-ghosts onboard?

He starts to look back over his shoulder, but there's a whole qilin, no, kirin sharing space with him now, and he blinks at the sudden presence of Taiki in kirin form.

Also, like what Inigo says, only from a slightly different angle, he loosens his hold on his qin which has been preventing Inigo from seeing all his wonderful chest, okay, small mercies granted entirely by accident to frown at Taiki.

"Feeling isn't foolish. You're allowed to cry if that's how you feel, okay, I'll fight anyone who says otherwise. Just like you can laugh or smile or get mad or whatever you feel and that's fine. This isn't a formal banquet hall, you're not on formal business, you're Xiao Ki, and I'm Jingyi, and he's Inigo, and—"

He loses track of what he was thinking and saying, instead looking back at Inigo.

"Why're you peering through your fingers, anyway?" Wet spa rat Jingyi has Questions.

He shook his head, wet mane shaking droplets of water across the spa floor as he looked at both Inigo and Lan Jingyi. He had been foolish, letting memories get the better of him, thinking of things best left in the past.

But there is still confusion in the spa, Inigo peeking through his fingers, Jingyi drunk, confused but not so upset anymore.

"I think Inigo is embarrassed." He spoke quietly, gently over his shoulder to Jingyi, as if explaining to someone much younger. "But he does not need to be."

He turns back to Inigo and nudges him with a wet nose.

.. oh no, he's getting a wet-nose-kirin-nudge.

At least that does make Inigo look a little bit more, slowly pulling the hands from his gaze.. but part of the reason as to why he can suddenly look more is that he's looking entirely at Taiki right now, and not at Jingyi's magnificent man nips over there.

And that, in turn, at least keeps him from freaking out enough to properly explain too.

"Y-Yes, of course I'm embarrassed! Both of you are-- were.. are naked!"

.. maybe not entirely naked. But considering the sheer amount of skin being shown here, the nakedness might as well be complete in Inigo's mind.

Ah, bless, the confusion is addressed. Somewhat. After a whole, "You came by the bathing place and expected people to be clothed?"

Not accusatorily, Jingyi sounds entirely confused. Not to mention they'd started out massaging, would Inigo have been shrieking then, too? Is he allergic to nipple reveals?! Do backs and shoulders send him into fits?

It's slower processing that everyone has different sorts of modesty, and most of what Jingyi does when that thought appears to register is go, "Oooooooh. Got it." He tosses his qin back and to the side, sending it into his resting qiankun pouch and then shifting form without fanfare. Cue the silver light, and the intensifying of it as he goes from full adult human to tiny, wee dragon.

That hits the ground with an audible thump, mostly trapped in his sopping wet trousers.

"Nooooo I'm trapped!"

There is now a drunk tiny dragon attempting to roll and wrestle his way out of sopping wet pants. So far, the pants are winning.

"Ah." Of course Jingyi doesn't quite understand. Even Taiki is not as comfortable with nudity as Jingyi is and Inigo is not someone who loses his clothes due to shape shifting. Inigo of course would worry about such things, because he is Inigio.

But Taiki is relieved when Jingyi transforms, because that would be better for Inigo. Except then...

Jingyi is stuck. Taiki turns to him and tries to help, trying to take the trousers in his mouth to pull them off Jingyi, looking at Inigo...

They might need someone with hands...

Look what a comedy scene this has turned into. Jingyi, all curled up in his wet pants, and then Taiki truly to uselessly get him out of there while only having horse parts available to do the trick..

The only upside in the middle of all this chaos is the fact that Inigo can normally look around again, now he doesn't have to worry about seeing any accidental skin reveals. So it's not too much of a problem to walk over to the pants and gently pull the small dragon out of them, pulling it up and holding it. There, there, Jingyi. It's okay. You're free now.

".. Sorry to make the two of you transform for my sake," he at least says. At least Inigo has the decency to say that much, because he knows that this entire situation is his fault.

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